Author: Heald, William Margetson
Biography:
HEALD, William Margetson (1767-1837: ODNB)
pseudonym Julius Juniper, Poet Laureat to the Royal College of Physicians
He was baptised on 19 Feb. 1767 at All Saints, Dewsbury, Yorkshire, the son of John Heald, farmer and maltster, and his wife Judith Margetson, who had married in 1763. He was educated at Batley grammar and originally studied medicine, attending the final lectures of John Hunter in Edinburgh. He practised briefly as an apothecary/surgeon in Wakefield but matriculated at St. Catherine’s, Cambridge in 1790 (BA 1794, MA 1798) and entered the church. He was Curate at Balsham, Cambs. 1794-97 and then Curate (1798-1801) and Vicar (1801-36) at Birstall, Yorks. He married Harriet Greenwood on 5 Jan. 1801. She was from Dewsbury Mills and related to the Greenwoods of Bridgehouse and Springhead who figure prominently in the lives of the Brontës (Brontë Encyclopedia [2007] 131-4). He suffered a stroke in 1836 and the living was given to his son, the Rev. William Margetson Heald (1803-75), widely thought to be the model for the Rev. Cyril Hall in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley (1849). The elder Heald died on 13 Jan. at Birstall. The attribution of The Brunoniad (1789) and therefore A Farewell Ode (1794) "By the author of the Brunoniad" have been contested on the basis of two articles in Notes & Queries which give Thomas Foster of St. John’s as the author of The Brunoniad. However, the N&Q authors believe the poem to be the result of a local bell-ringing dispute when it is quite clear it is a satire on the rivalry between Dr. John Brown (1735-88) and Dr. William Cullen (1710-90). A Farewell Ode (1794) should therefore also be attributed to Heald and its publication date tallies with his leaving Cambridge for a nearby curacy. (ODNB 6 May 2021; CCEd; ancestry.co.uk 6 May 2021; Leeds Intelligencer 12 Jan. 1801, 21 Jan. 1837; GM Apr. 1837, 435; N&Q 1st ser. 9: 573 and 3rd ser. 4: 122) AA
Other Names:
- W. M. Heald
- William Heald